January 4, 2024 • 30 mins
Summary
In this episode of the Ray Sanders Leadership Podcast, Ray Sanders discusses the importance of decision making and introduces the decision tree tool. He explains how leaders are faced with numerous decisions every day and how one bad decision can have a significant impact. The decision tree tool helps leaders make better decisions by considering four categories: God, Gut, Others, and Opportunity. By rating each category on a scale of 1 to 10 and calculating the average, leaders can determine their confidence level in a decision. Sanders also explores the David Principle of waiting, watching, and being willing to take action.
Takeaways
Leaders are faced with numerous decisions every day, and one bad decision can have a significant impact. The decision tree tool helps leaders make better decisions by considering four categories: God, Gut, Others, and Opportunity. By rating each category on a scale of 1 to 10 and calculating the average, leaders can determine their confidence level in a decision. The David Principle of waiting, watching, and being willing to take action can guide leaders in making decisions.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and the Importance of Decision Making 02:12 The Role of Decision Making in Leadership 03:38 The Decision Tree Tool 09:45 Category 1: God 14:37 Category 2: Gut 15:33 Category 3: Others 16:34 Category 4: Opportunity 20:25 Calculating the Confidence Rating 25:18 The David Principle: Waiting, Watching, and Willing 29:42 Conclusion and Call to Action
Decision Tree PDF download:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ray (00:00):
Hey. Thanks for stopping by, and as always, it's good to
hear from you, and I have a fewquestions for you today. So here
we go. Do you ever struggle tomake good decisions? Come on.
Be honest. Do you ever strugglewith make good making good
decisions? One of the bestdecisions I ever made, and I
can't believe I convinced her,was when I asked my wife to
(00:22):
marry me. And I don't know whyshe did, but I think she made a
good decision. I certainly knowI made a good decision.
So do you ever have troublemaking good decisions? How about
this? Once you decide, do youimmediately doubt the decision
you have made? You know, asleaders, we are faced with
thousands of decisions everyday. Think about it.
(00:43):
How many decisions do you makesubconsciously throughout the
day? It's not always about aspreadsheet. It's always not
about a personal issue. It couldbe about some of the silliest,
littlest things, where to park,how to respond to someone. The
the number of decisions you makein a day are are huge.
But one bad decision, and yourworld can be turned upside down.
(01:06):
Well, I've made a career out ofhelping leaders make better
decisions. And on this editionof the podcast, I will unpack a
simple tool that will help youhave the confidence you need to
have to make better decisions.Hello, everyone. I'm Ray
(01:27):
Sanders, and you're listening tothe Ray Sanders Leadership
Podcast.
Hey. Thanks for coming back andjoining us on today's podcast.
This is another edition of theRay Sanders Leadership Podcast.
If you haven't already, hey, whynot tell a friend? Share this
link.
Share this podcast. Subscribe.Do what you can to get involved.
We'd love to have you a part ofthe Ray Sanders Leadership
(01:48):
Podcast Community. You know, forthe last 25 or plus years, I'm
I've kinda stopped counting,I've spent a good part of my day
helping leaders make betterdecisions.
As a CEO coach and businessgrowth strategy consultant, my
focus is always on growing thebottom line and strengthening
leadership teams in order to seethe bottom line increased. You
(02:12):
know, we call this process thetriple bottom line. There's a
whole another show we'll do onthat, and I'm not gonna go into
it today and we'll talk aboutthat another time. But this is
at the core of what we do and wecall it the triple bottom line.
I'll just tell you what it is.
The triple bottom line focuseson profit, people, and purpose.
But for today, we're just goingto be talking about how to make
(02:33):
better decisions. As you mightimagine, I often serve as a
sounding board helping leadersnavigate the challenges they
face in life and work. And justa side note here, isn't it true
that life affects work and workaffects life? So it it it's
intermingled.
We're making decisions all thetime. Decisions we make in life
(02:55):
affect work. The decisions wemake at work affect life. And if
you're a guy, if you make toomany bad decisions at home, you
might be sleeping on the couch.And as the old joke goes, you're
gonna make you're gonna makeheadlines.
What I mean by that? Well, it'sbecause of those silly corduroy
pillows that are sitting thereon your couch that you tucked
under your your head and youwake up in the morning, you got
(03:17):
corduroy lines on your head.You're making headlines. Bad dad
joke. I know.
So, anyway, as you mightimagine, I I talk to a lot of
the leaders about the decisionsthat they're trying to make and
I serve as a sounding board. Soleaders are really decision
makers. They make things happen.The decisions they make have
exponential impact. So how doyou go about making decisions?
(03:39):
Do you roll the dice? Do youflip a coin? Do you read a
horoscope? Do you throw a dartat the wall and hope it sticks?
I'm reminded of the game show,you remember it, who wants to be
a millionaire?
Regis Philman would was thishost. He's the one I love the
most. I know they have otherguys since then. But Regis would
be asking someone, is that yourfinal answer? And they would
(04:02):
think about it and they woulddoubt and they would squirm in
their chair and then they wouldrealize they had a lifeline.
They had a lifeline. They werein a pickle and they were gonna
phone a friend. Is that is thathow you make decisions? Do you
phone a friend? Well, if wearen't careful, we can give in
to the paralysis of analysis.
We analyze, we look, weconsider, and we don't end up
(04:23):
making a decision. It's kindalike we're standing on a train
track and the decision's comingtowards us. Do I go left or do I
go right? Do I go left or do Igo right? And if I continue to
set their theme, do I go left orgo right?
I look like a deer inheadlights. I really suffer from
the paralysis of analysis and weknow how that story ends. As you
know, I often like to look atthe guidance from great leaders.
And without question, one of thegreatest leaders to ever live,
(04:46):
hands down, was king David. Andwe talked about him and, on our
last program as he dealt withworry.
We unpacked how David addressedworry. Well, I wanna I wanna
pick up on the life of Davidagain on this episode. And so
today, I wanna make anobservation about how I think he
went about decision making. Nowa leadership tool that I've
(05:09):
developed that outlines thisprocess is called the decision
tree. And we're gonna make thisavailable to you if you're
interested in getting a copy ofit.
I know this is a podcast andwe're we're talking about a
visual aid, And we want you tohave that for, for your use. And
we'll have a link in our shownotes that will tie that in, to
this program, and then you cango to our website or you can go
(05:30):
directly to our website, raysanders.com. Reach out to us,
and we'll make this available toyou, and we'll get this decision
tree in your hands. One of thethings that I I'm kind of known
for is I don't like toovercomplicate things. And when
you see this decision tree,you're gonna go, that's really
simple.
And you know what? You just paidme a compliment because that's
what I hope it is. I hope it'sreally simple, and I don't want
(05:52):
to overcomplicate it. Sobasically, let's let this is
this is how it works. Let's sayyou're trying to make a
decision.
It could be a decision at home.It could be a decision about
your career. It could be adecision about your business. It
could be a decision about, whereto go on vacation. But let's
just say for our purposes thatyou are trying to make a
decision about whether or not toacquire another company.
(06:15):
Let's say your your competitorin another region or a
competitor a few towns over orjust across the line in another
state is looking to sell hisbusiness. He's been he's been
doing the business for years andyou have an opportunity to
acquire his his book ofbusiness. And, through this
acquisition, you could grow yourown. It might double your
business. It might grow it by25%.
(06:37):
But it's one way to consider togrow your your business. So
let's start by defining thedecision. In this case, the the
question is, should I buy out mycompetitor? Now pause. You might
be surprised how many people,when trying to make a decision,
can't define the question.
(06:58):
They don't know what answerthey're looking for. They they
want it they want an answer, butthey don't know the question. So
we have to define what is itthat we want to decide upon. If
we had the answer, what is thequestion? If we ask the right
question, we'll get the rightanswer hopefully.
If we ask the wrong question, wemight get an answer, but it may
(07:19):
not help at all. So once wedefine the decision, what I do
is through the decision tree isI break down the decision into 4
simple categories. And I use atriangle in order to make this
happen. And once you see this,you'll understand what I'm
talking about. But in thistriangle, it's basically a
triangle is the top of a tree.
(07:39):
Right? It looks like a tree. Andif I put a little trunk at the
bottom, it would definitely looklike a tree. It look like a
Christmas tree. So you have thisyou have this triangle, and at
the top of the triangle is oneof the categories and in the
middle is another category andthen there's 2 other categories
on the left and right and it'sall intertwined with 4 different
triangles in a large triangle.
(08:01):
Are you confused yet? Bear withme. Basically, this is how it
works. There are 2 categoriesthat start with the letter g,
like a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Sothere's 2 categories that start
with the letter g, then thereare 2 other categories that
start with the letter o.
When it comes to decisionmaking, and in this case, we're
(08:21):
trying to decide. The questionwe have is the question is this,
do we buy out a competitor?Well, there's a lot of things to
consider there. But if we takethese 4 categories, I think
we'll be closer to making theright decision. So here's the
first category.
Now you know a lot of myperspective comes from looking
(08:41):
at the ancient ancient works,and I believe that king David
took something I don't think hehad Ray Sanders' decision tree.
I'm not suggesting that. I'mjust saying that he had a
mindset that I think is found inthe decision tree. And in the
first category in the decisiontree, I think, definitely is a
(09:01):
category that David used. Sohere it is.
The first category starts with ag and it's
this. What does God have to say about this decision? You're
like, are you kidding me? I have
no idea, and now you're asking me what God thinks about
this. What does God think aboutit? I don't even know what I
(09:22):
think about it. Well, here's thething. I truly believe that that
we have there is a there is aspiritual being, the creator,
who is interested in hiscreation.
So just give me that. Now youmay not agree with me, but
that's what I believe. And Ihave a whole another faith faith
line that I believe in, youknow, as you probably know if
(09:43):
you've heard me on thesepodcasts, but in the least, I'm
a believer. Alright? And I thinkJesus has a whole lot to do with
that.
Let me just tell you. But here's here's the thing. The
first category starts with a gand it's god. You're like, come
on, Ray. What do you mean?
How am I gonna figure that out? Well, I think there's a lot
of ways that we can begin to askgod about what he thinks about
(10:06):
something. And and thiscategory, I think is there's
basically 3 categories, and it's3 w's. Under god, what does his
word say about it? If you wannaif you wanna find out what he
thinks about things, a lot ofthe decisions we make, we can
find just by the the laws, theprinciples that he's outlined
from Genesis all the way toRevelation.
(10:27):
A lot of the decisions thatwe're trying to make, especially
if they're echo ethical innature, there's no question what
he would think about it. Sothere's one. The first w is the
word. Go to the word. Go to theancient text.
See what the word says about it.If you haven't cracked that old
Bible open in a while, maybeit's time to do so. Or get on
the Bible app or Google it orfind out, you know, if you're
(10:50):
trying to decide on something,there's probably a pretty good
chance, especially the book ofProverbs. The book of Proverbs
has a lot to say about thingsthat, when it comes to decision
making. So the word.
The other one is, and it
kinda sounds churchy, but it's worship. And to me, that's
that's where I get a lot ofinsight. And and I describe that
as my time of prayer, my time ofmeditation, the time I set
(11:13):
aside, honestly to try to hearfrom him. I wanna hear from the
man upstairs. And like we talkedabout on our last podcast, if I
just would get still.
You see, part of the problemwith most of us is we're moving
around so much, we couldn't godcould we couldn't even hear from
god if
we wanted to. You know? We've got so many things going
on. We're so busy that we
won't settle down long enough and just sit still and
(11:36):
listen to God. I have friends,they'll sit down with a cigar
and smoke a cigar and sit on theback porch and just you know,
ask the Lord to reveal himselfto them. There's all kinds of
way. Go whatever works for you.Some people, they find that
maybe would come through aworship service or maybe they
listen to a song and they getspoken to just because they got
(11:58):
still and they were willing tohear.
So the first one is word, secondone is worship, and then the
third one, this one, you'regoing
to think I'm crazy, But the world,
the world. Have you ever been driving down the
the road or you if you just were trying
to make a decision about something and, like, the
billboard, it's as silly asbillboard, but it just speaks to
(12:19):
you or you heard a song or youyou run into somebody in the in
the grocery store or you'rewalking out of a restaurant and
someone says something to you.Can I just tell you? I think
ordinary angels exist. I thinkGod uses everyday ordinary
things and people to speak tous. We just have to be
listening.
I love I love it when I hearsomeone say, eyes to see and
(12:40):
ears to hear. Eyes to see andears to hear. When we're tuned
in, sometimes I feel like we'resome of you out there are
probably thinking, what's AMradio? But it's like sometimes I
have my radio turned on to theAM dial, and I need to be on FM.
I'm never gonna get, you know,the top 40 on on AM.
I might get talk radio on AM,but I've gotta be on the right
(13:03):
frequency. And if I have my eyesopen and my ears open, you'll be
amazed at how much in this firstcategory you can hear from God.
Alright. So let's move to thenext category. That category is
a category that also starts witha g, and that's your gut.
Now come on. I don't know whatthe decision is that you're
you're wanting to make, butthere is it somewhere in your
(13:23):
gut, you have a feel for whatand how the decision should be
made. You just kinda know. It'san intuition. You have a hunch.
It's just a little bit of aspeculation, but you just kind
of feel that, you know, thismight be good for us, or this is
a really, really bad idea.What's your gut say about it?
That's personal. I can't tellyou how to deal with that, and
that might be where you waffleand you go back and forth. But
(13:46):
somewhere in there, you have afeel for what your gut would say
about this particular decision.
Alright. Let's go to the 3rdcategory. In the 3rd category,
we need to keep in mind thatthere are 2 o's. And the first,
o is others. So so far we'reasking yourself, what does god
have to say about it?
And you're saying, I don't know,Ray. I'm not that spiritual.
(14:08):
Well, you know what I thinkabout that. I just told you. And
then I'm saying, what does yourgut say?
You're saying, well, I don'tknow. I'm a waffler. Okay.
That's fine. Let's go to thenext category.
What happens when you go andtalk to a buddy? What happens
when you go and talk to an oldfriend? What happens when you go
and get counsel from an attorneyor an accountant or a CPA or
(14:28):
another business partner orsomeone in another state or
college roommate that you hadlong ago or, I don't know, maybe
there's a spiritual director inyour life, someone you feel like
has can give you spiritualdirection. There's an old
ancient scripture that also saysthis. It says that there's
wisdom in an
abundance of counsel. How much counsel are you getting?
How much input are you getting? Now you may be
(14:50):
thinking, I've got way too manyvoices in my head. Well, you
have to discern how many peopleam I gonna ask. Are you gonna
launch a nationwide poll andorder your life according to
some poll? I don't think so.
But you know who those peopleare in your life that you could
go to and you consider them tobe wise people that could help
you. So what do they think aboutthis decision? And then finally,
(15:14):
what about the opportunityitself? Given the example that
I've given you, the opportunitywould be, is it available? Is
the business even available?
Is it priced within our range?Is it a good opportunity? What's
going on with the customer base?Is the is the business on
decline? How's how's thebusiness value?
(15:36):
What's the valuation? Are salesup or down? Are the customers
happy and satisfied? What abouttheir physical plant? How much
would we have to renovate?
How much inventory do they have?Do they utilize a different
product line than we do? Theseare all things that help us
analyze the opportunity. Andonce we do that, we analyze the
(15:56):
opportunity, quite frankly, wemay decide this we're gonna run
from this. We're not gonna dothat.
So, you know, you're thinking,okay. There's 4 categories, god,
gut, others, and opportunity.Now here's where it gets fun.
When you get this little PDFthat we'll make available to
you, what we want you to do iswe want you to utilize each of
these categories, god, gut,others and opportunity. And on a
(16:19):
scale to 1 to 10, bear with me,on a scale to 1 to 10, if I were
to ask you scale to 1 to 10,what do you think God thinks
about this decision?
You're like, holy moly, man, iseverything a spiritual decision?
You know what? I kind of thinkit is in
a way. It affects so much. So what what do you just right
(16:39):
now, time and space today, I'm
not saying you have all the answers. On a scale to 1 to 10,
how do you think God feels aboutthis decision and this
opportunity? So let's just sayhe gives you a 6. You think he
would give you a 6. Then you askyourself, what's my gut say?
My gut says, I'll give it an 8.And you've gone around and you
(17:01):
talked to some other people,you've you've listened to them,
and they you've you've kindaanalyzed it, you put it put it
all together, you averaged itout, and you say, everybody
tells me it's about a 7. On ascale to 1 to 10, it's about a
7. And then the last thing youlook at, you've kind of done
your your your homework and youdecide, you know what? This is a
this opportunity is about an 8on a 1 to 10 scale.
(17:23):
That's pretty good. So now whatare we going to do with all
those numbers? This is why it'sso simple. We had 4 categories,
god, gut, others, andopportunity. We rated each of
those categories on a scale of 1to 10.
Now we've added those up, andthe example I gave you was we we
said that God would
give us a 6, we gave our gut an 8, others gave us a 7,
(17:46):
and the opportunity is an 8. 6878. That totals 29. So what am
I going to do? I'm going todivide that by 4.
And what does that give me? Thatgives me a confidence of 7.25.
Now what are you gonna do with that? On this decision,
(18:06):
7.25, what I would tell you is,
if it's not greater than 8, it's not great. A 7.25 probably
lets me know that I'm a littleearly in
the game here, or it could be a solid no. Maybe that's all
I needed. I just needed thatlittle bit of analysis by these
4 categories in a 7.25. Man, I'mtelling you, that's not where I
(18:30):
wanna be. It's close, but nocigar.
Right? Now there's other timesthere's other times that I might
have given an 8, 8, 9, and 9.God's an 8. I'm an 8. Others are
a 9.
The opportunity is a 9, and I
get an 8.5. I'm telling you, it's go time. It's go time.
If it's greater than 8, it'sgreat.
(18:50):
And that probably means there's a pretty good potential
for this decision to be made ina good way. Now there's always
what I believe, without faith,it's impossible to believe god.
And there's always that elementof faith. And rarely have I seen
anybody get a 9.95 or anybodyget a 10. But when you start
moving into the eights andabove, you know you're honing in
on a decision that pretty muchis probably moving in the right
(19:13):
direction.
And I think this is kind of howDavid analyzed his life. Now I'm
gonna I'm gonna dig into that alittle bit more in just a
minute. But are you with me? Letme summarize. Bottom line is
we're talking about a decisiontree.
We have to define the question,what is the decision we're
trying to make? Then we filterit through 4 categories, 2g's
and 2os, god, gut, others, andopportunity. Then we rate what
(19:38):
do we think God thinks about itand we had 3 w's, remember that?
We had 3 w's. What does my gutsay about it?
What do others say about it? Andwhat is the opportunity? I add
all those up, I divide those by4 and that gives me my
confidence rating. And in thiscase that I gave you, a 6, 7, or
6, 8, 7 and 8 was 29 divided by4 was 7.25. And I'm gonna tell
(20:01):
you, I probably wouldn't bemoving ahead with that business
at this time.
So sometimes, which is often thecase, we feel confident that we
are making the right decision,but the timing isn't just right.
It maybe has something to dowith us, it may have something
to do with other circumstances,but here's what I
can tell you. Here's what I can tell you. Would you agree?
(20:26):
Timing is everything.
Timing is everything. And that's where the life of David
comes into play. That's where Ican tie in David into this
decision tree.
What do we
know about David? Let's do a little review here about this
this leader, this leader thatled a nation, was considered one
of the most amazing leaders toever live. What do we know about
(20:46):
David? Well, here's one thingyou probably know pretty quick.
He was a shepherd boy.
He was a shepherd boy and he wasthe runt of the family. He was
the runt of the family. And oneday, this man comes into their
village and he decides that hethinks that the next king of
Israel is in this village andDavid has all these brothers and
(21:07):
David's out in the fieldwatching the sheep and this man,
Samuel, comes in and he'stalking to Jesse and he's that's
David's dad, and he says, hey,
line them up.
I wanna see what they look like. And he lines them up and
he says, and I'm not tooimpressed. Do you got anything
better? He says, well, we gotthe rut in the family. His
(21:30):
name's David.
He's out in the in the pasture.So Samuel Waltz is out there and
it becomes clear to him thatDavid is the anointed. David is
the next king to lead thisnation into the next, you know,
the next generation. So he kindof rubs David on the head and
says, hey kids, you're going tobe king someday. David doesn't
think anything about it and hesits on this rock and he
continues to use this slingshotto knock acorns off of other
(21:53):
stones and kind of sets out justkind of watching the sunset and
rise and making sure the wolvesdon't come
and eat all the family livestock. And years goes by.
And what do we know? David's
setting it home, and his brothers are off at war now. And
dad's getting worried about him,and he says, you know what,
David? I want you to take thisbag of biscuits, to the boys on
(22:15):
the field and let me know howthey're doing. David shows up
and there's this giant in hislife, this standing before all
of his countrymen. Now can you relate? Do you have giants
in your life?
Are there giants that stand before you? And sometimes I
think that we're called out tobe giant slayers. And I think in
this particular time in space,David had a decision to make. He
(22:37):
looked out there and he saw thisgiant of a man, you know the
story, David and Goliath. Andhe's like, what is going on with
all
of you guys? Why hasn't somebody taken this Philistine
out? And what happened? Davidsays, I got this, guys. And they
all laugh and they tell him
to go home, but the king gets interested.
And what does David do? He's offered all of
(22:59):
the king's armor. It's big. It's bulky. And David's like,
nah. Don't need that.
I got my slingshot and a fewrocks. I'm gonna go down down
and knock this guy out, and I'llbe home for dinner by the here
in just a little bit. And that'sexactly what he does. And then
David's life, you know, he hecomes into the king's court.
He's a he's a favor he'sfavored.
He's not only good at with aslingshot, he's pretty good on
(23:20):
the electric harp. That's ajoke. He's not electric harp,
but he was good on the harp. Andhe's playing the harp, and the
king loves him, he finds favor.One thing leads to another, he
becomes a warrior, he doesreally good and the king doesn't
necessarily like the press thatDavid gets as a warrior.
And he ends up being pursued,and King Saul attempts to try to
(23:42):
kill him. And
David's on the run. And time and
time again, he has opportunities to take Saul out,
and there's decisions that hehas to make. But he doesn't want
to he doesn't want to act toosoon. He doesn't wanna get out
ahead of what the g in thedecision tree would say because
David knew that Saul was theanointed and it wasn't his time
(24:05):
to be king. But here he waswaiting all this time. What was
it about this man that came intohis life and said he was gonna
be king and now it's time goeson and on and on.
He knows what his calling is. Hefeels like he has his purpose in
life, but but it's not beingfulfilled. And next thing we
know, king Saul is out of thepicture, David becomes king and
(24:27):
we begin to see a pattern inDavid's life as a leader that is
precedent. David, if he wasknown as the beloved, there's
another phrase that he's knownfor and that he was known as a
man after God's own heart. Whatthis tells me is that I can sum
up David's approach by making,this statement.
He made decisions
(24:49):
that I can describe with one word, ask.
David was a leader that was known to ask. He would ask god.
He would ask his friends. Hewould ask himself. He would ask
about the opportunity.
David began to ask.
So what would he do?
He would say, what would the lord have us do? One of my
(25:09):
most favorite stories that arein these ancient texts that I'm
referring to is a story in thein the old testament where David
is now king and it's his firstbattle where he is called to a
battle down in a certain valleyand he has a a known enemy, and
they need to be taken out. AndDavid's about to rush out with
(25:30):
all of his men, and I I'm addingto the story here. I'm I kinda
think it might have been how itwas, so don't quote me per se on
it or I I don't I don't thinkhe's exactly right. But the
bottom line is David is about togo out and take on the enemy.
I mean, he's he's he's known forkicking tail, man. He's kicking
butt. He's known for for takingout people, and It's not like he
doesn't know what he's doing.But what does David do with all
(25:52):
of his mighty men? Can you justsee these guys all decked out
like gladiators ready to
go down and kick some tail? What does David do? And it's
similar to
what we learned about when we deal with worry. He said,
hey, guys, let's be still.
What would the lord have us do?
You see, he was practicing the the one of the g's out of
the decision tree. What wouldthe lord have us do? And so I
(26:17):
believe that there's thispattern that we can look into
David's life and we can see thathe was known for asking. He was
pausing, and he would put thedecision tree in front of
himself, and he would givehimself time to work it through.
He wasn't he wouldn't just gooff half cocked.
He wouldn't just do it on awhim. He would take the time to
be still and contemplate, but hewouldn't sit around and get
caught up in the paralysis ofanalysis. So when I think of his
(26:40):
life, I also think of 6 w's. NowI'm I'm pulling out now at about
20, 30000 feet, and I thinkabout his life in as as as a
whole and in general. And so Ithink that David knew his
calling, but I think he oftenfound himself with what I call
the 6 w's.
And we run this down across thebottom of the decision tree and
(27:04):
we call it the David principle.And these 6 w's is where I think
David found himself, and quitefrankly, I think it's where I
find myself a lot of times whenI'm trying to make a decision.
And even a lot of times, after Ifeel like I have the right
decision, it seems like thetiming isn't just right. And I
know that David practiced these6 these 6 w's and here's what
(27:25):
they are. I think David foundhimself often waiting and
watching,
waiting and watching. He knew what he was supposed to do,
but he was waiting for theproper time. He was watching for
the time to act. He knew justwhen to throw the rock from the
(27:45):
sling. He knew just when
to run down to the battlefield. And what's
interesting about that storyabout his first battle, the
first battle that he had when hesaid, what would the Lord have
us do? What's interesting aboutthat story is it wasn't too much
longer that the same enemy onthe same battlefield came back
into play. And David could havethought that what he did before
is what he needed to do now, butwhat did David do? That's the
(28:07):
beautiful thing about the lifeof David, and that's why I love
the decision tree.
David went before the lord andsaid, lord, what would you have
us do? He was waiting andwatching. And then here's the
here's the thing. He waswilling. He was waiting,
watching and willing.
And he was willing to do thenext three w's. He was willing
to do whatever,
(28:28):
whenever, wherever.
And that's what it comes down to. If we're gonna make
good decisions, we we may findourselves waiting. We may find
ourselves watching. I believeDavid was a man that utilized
something like the decisiontree. I believe David was a man
(28:50):
that utilized something like thedecision tree.
No. I don't think it was thedecision tree, but it was
something like that. How aboutyou? How about you? What
decision are you trying to make?
Where do you find yourself? Isthere a decision you are trying
to make? Do you feel confident you have the right
answer?
You have all the information? Do you find
(29:10):
yourself waiting and watchingand willing to do whatever,
whenever, wherever?
Have you remained willing to do whatever, whenever,
wherever? You see, the decisiontree is a great way to gain a
perspective on the decisions wemake in life. Hey.
If you would like a copy of the decision tree, by all means,
(29:33):
look at the show notes, and wehave a link there, or reach out
to us on the website, raysanders dotcom. Hey. Thanks for
stopping by. It means a lot. Ireally mean that.
I'd love to hear from you. If ifyou were encouraged by what we
said here, you were inspired, byall means, hit the like button,
subscribe, send out theinformation. Let's share the
(29:54):
love. Better yet, why not sendthe podcast to a friend? Reach
out to us at ray sanders.com.
We'd love to hear from you.Know, that pretty much does it
for the show. Thanks for joiningme again here on the Ray Sanders
Leadership Podcast. We're inyour corner for life and work.
Hey. Thanks for stopping by, and as always, it's good to
hear from you, and I have a fewquestions for you today. So here
we go. Do you ever struggle tomake good decisions? Come on.
Be honest. Do you ever strugglewith make good making good
decisions? One of the bestdecisions I ever made, and I
can't believe I convinced her,was when I asked my wife to
(00:22):
marry me. And I don't know whyshe did, but I think she made a
good decision. I certainly knowI made a good decision.
So do you ever have troublemaking good decisions? How about
this? Once you decide, do youimmediately doubt the decision
you have made? You know, asleaders, we are faced with
thousands of decisions everyday. Think about it.
(00:43):
How many decisions do you makesubconsciously throughout the
day? It's not always about aspreadsheet. It's always not
about a personal issue. It couldbe about some of the silliest,
littlest things, where to park,how to respond to someone. The
the number of decisions you makein a day are are huge.
But one bad decision, and yourworld can be turned upside down.
(01:06):
Well, I've made a career out ofhelping leaders make better
decisions. And on this editionof the podcast, I will unpack a
simple tool that will help youhave the confidence you need to
have to make better decisions.Hello, everyone. I'm Ray
(01:27):
Sanders, and you're listening tothe Ray Sanders Leadership
Podcast.
Hey. Thanks for coming back andjoining us on today's podcast.
This is another edition of theRay Sanders Leadership Podcast.
If you haven't already, hey, whynot tell a friend? Share this
link.
Share this podcast. Subscribe.Do what you can to get involved.
We'd love to have you a part ofthe Ray Sanders Leadership
(01:48):
Podcast Community. You know, forthe last 25 or plus years, I'm
I've kinda stopped counting,I've spent a good part of my day
helping leaders make betterdecisions.
As a CEO coach and businessgrowth strategy consultant, my
focus is always on growing thebottom line and strengthening
leadership teams in order to seethe bottom line increased. You
(02:12):
know, we call this process thetriple bottom line. There's a
whole another show we'll do onthat, and I'm not gonna go into
it today and we'll talk aboutthat another time. But this is
at the core of what we do and wecall it the triple bottom line.
I'll just tell you what it is.
The triple bottom line focuseson profit, people, and purpose.
But for today, we're just goingto be talking about how to make
(02:33):
better decisions. As you mightimagine, I often serve as a
sounding board helping leadersnavigate the challenges they
face in life and work. And justa side note here, isn't it true
that life affects work and workaffects life? So it it it's
intermingled.
We're making decisions all thetime. Decisions we make in life
(02:55):
affect work. The decisions wemake at work affect life. And if
you're a guy, if you make toomany bad decisions at home, you
might be sleeping on the couch.And as the old joke goes, you're
gonna make you're gonna makeheadlines.
What I mean by that? Well, it'sbecause of those silly corduroy
pillows that are sitting thereon your couch that you tucked
under your your head and youwake up in the morning, you got
(03:17):
corduroy lines on your head.You're making headlines. Bad dad
joke. I know.
So, anyway, as you mightimagine, I I talk to a lot of
the leaders about the decisionsthat they're trying to make and
I serve as a sounding board. Soleaders are really decision
makers. They make things happen.The decisions they make have
exponential impact. So how doyou go about making decisions?
(03:39):
Do you roll the dice? Do youflip a coin? Do you read a
horoscope? Do you throw a dartat the wall and hope it sticks?
I'm reminded of the game show,you remember it, who wants to be
a millionaire?
Regis Philman would was thishost. He's the one I love the
most. I know they have otherguys since then. But Regis would
be asking someone, is that yourfinal answer? And they would
(04:02):
think about it and they woulddoubt and they would squirm in
their chair and then they wouldrealize they had a lifeline.
They had a lifeline. They werein a pickle and they were gonna
phone a friend. Is that is thathow you make decisions? Do you
phone a friend? Well, if wearen't careful, we can give in
to the paralysis of analysis.
We analyze, we look, weconsider, and we don't end up
(04:23):
making a decision. It's kindalike we're standing on a train
track and the decision's comingtowards us. Do I go left or do I
go right? Do I go left or do Igo right? And if I continue to
set their theme, do I go left orgo right?
I look like a deer inheadlights. I really suffer from
the paralysis of analysis and weknow how that story ends. As you
know, I often like to look atthe guidance from great leaders.
And without question, one of thegreatest leaders to ever live,
(04:46):
hands down, was king David. Andwe talked about him and, on our
last program as he dealt withworry.
We unpacked how David addressedworry. Well, I wanna I wanna
pick up on the life of Davidagain on this episode. And so
today, I wanna make anobservation about how I think he
went about decision making. Nowa leadership tool that I've
(05:09):
developed that outlines thisprocess is called the decision
tree. And we're gonna make thisavailable to you if you're
interested in getting a copy ofit.
I know this is a podcast andwe're we're talking about a
visual aid, And we want you tohave that for, for your use. And
we'll have a link in our shownotes that will tie that in, to
this program, and then you cango to our website or you can go
(05:30):
directly to our website, raysanders.com. Reach out to us,
and we'll make this available toyou, and we'll get this decision
tree in your hands. One of thethings that I I'm kind of known
for is I don't like toovercomplicate things. And when
you see this decision tree,you're gonna go, that's really
simple.
And you know what? You just paidme a compliment because that's
what I hope it is. I hope it'sreally simple, and I don't want
(05:52):
to overcomplicate it. Sobasically, let's let this is
this is how it works. Let's sayyou're trying to make a
decision.
It could be a decision at home.It could be a decision about
your career. It could be adecision about your business. It
could be a decision about, whereto go on vacation. But let's
just say for our purposes thatyou are trying to make a
decision about whether or not toacquire another company.
(06:15):
Let's say your your competitorin another region or a
competitor a few towns over orjust across the line in another
state is looking to sell hisbusiness. He's been he's been
doing the business for years andyou have an opportunity to
acquire his his book ofbusiness. And, through this
acquisition, you could grow yourown. It might double your
business. It might grow it by25%.
(06:37):
But it's one way to consider togrow your your business. So
let's start by defining thedecision. In this case, the the
question is, should I buy out mycompetitor? Now pause. You might
be surprised how many people,when trying to make a decision,
can't define the question.
(06:58):
They don't know what answerthey're looking for. They they
want it they want an answer, butthey don't know the question. So
we have to define what is itthat we want to decide upon. If
we had the answer, what is thequestion? If we ask the right
question, we'll get the rightanswer hopefully.
If we ask the wrong question, wemight get an answer, but it may
(07:19):
not help at all. So once wedefine the decision, what I do
is through the decision tree isI break down the decision into 4
simple categories. And I use atriangle in order to make this
happen. And once you see this,you'll understand what I'm
talking about. But in thistriangle, it's basically a
triangle is the top of a tree.
(07:39):
Right? It looks like a tree. Andif I put a little trunk at the
bottom, it would definitely looklike a tree. It look like a
Christmas tree. So you have thisyou have this triangle, and at
the top of the triangle is oneof the categories and in the
middle is another category andthen there's 2 other categories
on the left and right and it'sall intertwined with 4 different
triangles in a large triangle.
(08:01):
Are you confused yet? Bear withme. Basically, this is how it
works. There are 2 categoriesthat start with the letter g,
like a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Sothere's 2 categories that start
with the letter g, then thereare 2 other categories that
start with the letter o.
When it comes to decisionmaking, and in this case, we're
(08:21):
trying to decide. The questionwe have is the question is this,
do we buy out a competitor?Well, there's a lot of things to
consider there. But if we takethese 4 categories, I think
we'll be closer to making theright decision. So here's the
first category.
Now you know a lot of myperspective comes from looking
(08:41):
at the ancient ancient works,and I believe that king David
took something I don't think hehad Ray Sanders' decision tree.
I'm not suggesting that. I'mjust saying that he had a
mindset that I think is found inthe decision tree. And in the
first category in the decisiontree, I think, definitely is a
(09:01):
category that David used. Sohere it is.
The first category starts with ag and it's
this. What does God have to say about this decision? You're
like, are you kidding me? I have
no idea, and now you're asking me what God thinks about
this. What does God think aboutit? I don't even know what I
(09:22):
think about it. Well, here's thething. I truly believe that that
we have there is a there is aspiritual being, the creator,
who is interested in hiscreation.
So just give me that. Now youmay not agree with me, but
that's what I believe. And Ihave a whole another faith faith
line that I believe in, youknow, as you probably know if
(09:43):
you've heard me on thesepodcasts, but in the least, I'm
a believer. Alright? And I thinkJesus has a whole lot to do with
that.
Let me just tell you. But here's here's the thing. The
first category starts with a gand it's god. You're like, come
on, Ray. What do you mean?
How am I gonna figure that out? Well, I think there's a lot
of ways that we can begin to askgod about what he thinks about
(10:06):
something. And and thiscategory, I think is there's
basically 3 categories, and it's3 w's. Under god, what does his
word say about it? If you wannaif you wanna find out what he
thinks about things, a lot ofthe decisions we make, we can
find just by the the laws, theprinciples that he's outlined
from Genesis all the way toRevelation.
(10:27):
A lot of the decisions thatwe're trying to make, especially
if they're echo ethical innature, there's no question what
he would think about it. Sothere's one. The first w is the
word. Go to the word. Go to theancient text.
See what the word says about it.If you haven't cracked that old
Bible open in a while, maybeit's time to do so. Or get on
the Bible app or Google it orfind out, you know, if you're
(10:50):
trying to decide on something,there's probably a pretty good
chance, especially the book ofProverbs. The book of Proverbs
has a lot to say about thingsthat, when it comes to decision
making. So the word.
The other one is, and it
kinda sounds churchy, but it's worship. And to me, that's
that's where I get a lot ofinsight. And and I describe that
as my time of prayer, my time ofmeditation, the time I set
(11:13):
aside, honestly to try to hearfrom him. I wanna hear from the
man upstairs. And like we talkedabout on our last podcast, if I
just would get still.
You see, part of the problemwith most of us is we're moving
around so much, we couldn't godcould we couldn't even hear from
god if
we wanted to. You know? We've got so many things going
on. We're so busy that we
won't settle down long enough and just sit still and
(11:36):
listen to God. I have friends,they'll sit down with a cigar
and smoke a cigar and sit on theback porch and just you know,
ask the Lord to reveal himselfto them. There's all kinds of
way. Go whatever works for you.Some people, they find that
maybe would come through aworship service or maybe they
listen to a song and they getspoken to just because they got
(11:58):
still and they were willing tohear.
So the first one is word, secondone is worship, and then the
third one, this one, you'regoing
to think I'm crazy, But the world,
the world. Have you ever been driving down the
the road or you if you just were trying
to make a decision about something and, like, the
billboard, it's as silly asbillboard, but it just speaks to
(12:19):
you or you heard a song or youyou run into somebody in the in
the grocery store or you'rewalking out of a restaurant and
someone says something to you.Can I just tell you? I think
ordinary angels exist. I thinkGod uses everyday ordinary
things and people to speak tous. We just have to be
listening.
I love I love it when I hearsomeone say, eyes to see and
(12:40):
ears to hear. Eyes to see andears to hear. When we're tuned
in, sometimes I feel like we'resome of you out there are
probably thinking, what's AMradio? But it's like sometimes I
have my radio turned on to theAM dial, and I need to be on FM.
I'm never gonna get, you know,the top 40 on on AM.
I might get talk radio on AM,but I've gotta be on the right
(13:03):
frequency. And if I have my eyesopen and my ears open, you'll be
amazed at how much in this firstcategory you can hear from God.
Alright. So let's move to thenext category. That category is
a category that also starts witha g, and that's your gut.
Now come on. I don't know whatthe decision is that you're
you're wanting to make, butthere is it somewhere in your
(13:23):
gut, you have a feel for whatand how the decision should be
made. You just kinda know. It'san intuition. You have a hunch.
It's just a little bit of aspeculation, but you just kind
of feel that, you know, thismight be good for us, or this is
a really, really bad idea.What's your gut say about it?
That's personal. I can't tellyou how to deal with that, and
that might be where you waffleand you go back and forth. But
(13:46):
somewhere in there, you have afeel for what your gut would say
about this particular decision.
Alright. Let's go to the 3rdcategory. In the 3rd category,
we need to keep in mind thatthere are 2 o's. And the first,
o is others. So so far we'reasking yourself, what does god
have to say about it?
And you're saying, I don't know,Ray. I'm not that spiritual.
(14:08):
Well, you know what I thinkabout that. I just told you. And
then I'm saying, what does yourgut say?
You're saying, well, I don'tknow. I'm a waffler. Okay.
That's fine. Let's go to thenext category.
What happens when you go andtalk to a buddy? What happens
when you go and talk to an oldfriend? What happens when you go
and get counsel from an attorneyor an accountant or a CPA or
(14:28):
another business partner orsomeone in another state or
college roommate that you hadlong ago or, I don't know, maybe
there's a spiritual director inyour life, someone you feel like
has can give you spiritualdirection. There's an old
ancient scripture that also saysthis. It says that there's
wisdom in an
abundance of counsel. How much counsel are you getting?
How much input are you getting? Now you may be
(14:50):
thinking, I've got way too manyvoices in my head. Well, you
have to discern how many peopleam I gonna ask. Are you gonna
launch a nationwide poll andorder your life according to
some poll? I don't think so.
But you know who those peopleare in your life that you could
go to and you consider them tobe wise people that could help
you. So what do they think aboutthis decision? And then finally,
(15:14):
what about the opportunityitself? Given the example that
I've given you, the opportunitywould be, is it available? Is
the business even available?
Is it priced within our range?Is it a good opportunity? What's
going on with the customer base?Is the is the business on
decline? How's how's thebusiness value?
(15:36):
What's the valuation? Are salesup or down? Are the customers
happy and satisfied? What abouttheir physical plant? How much
would we have to renovate?
How much inventory do they have?Do they utilize a different
product line than we do? Theseare all things that help us
analyze the opportunity. Andonce we do that, we analyze the
(15:56):
opportunity, quite frankly, wemay decide this we're gonna run
from this. We're not gonna dothat.
So, you know, you're thinking,okay. There's 4 categories, god,
gut, others, and opportunity.Now here's where it gets fun.
When you get this little PDFthat we'll make available to
you, what we want you to do iswe want you to utilize each of
these categories, god, gut,others and opportunity. And on a
(16:19):
scale to 1 to 10, bear with me,on a scale to 1 to 10, if I were
to ask you scale to 1 to 10,what do you think God thinks
about this decision?
You're like, holy moly, man, iseverything a spiritual decision?
You know what? I kind of thinkit is in
a way. It affects so much. So what what do you just right
(16:39):
now, time and space today, I'm
not saying you have all the answers. On a scale to 1 to 10,
how do you think God feels aboutthis decision and this
opportunity? So let's just sayhe gives you a 6. You think he
would give you a 6. Then you askyourself, what's my gut say?
My gut says, I'll give it an 8.And you've gone around and you
(17:01):
talked to some other people,you've you've listened to them,
and they you've you've kindaanalyzed it, you put it put it
all together, you averaged itout, and you say, everybody
tells me it's about a 7. On ascale to 1 to 10, it's about a
7. And then the last thing youlook at, you've kind of done
your your your homework and youdecide, you know what? This is a
this opportunity is about an 8on a 1 to 10 scale.
(17:23):
That's pretty good. So now whatare we going to do with all
those numbers? This is why it'sso simple. We had 4 categories,
god, gut, others, andopportunity. We rated each of
those categories on a scale of 1to 10.
Now we've added those up, andthe example I gave you was we we
said that God would
give us a 6, we gave our gut an 8, others gave us a 7,
(17:46):
and the opportunity is an 8. 6878. That totals 29. So what am
I going to do? I'm going todivide that by 4.
And what does that give me? Thatgives me a confidence of 7.25.
Now what are you gonna do with that? On this decision,
(18:06):
7.25, what I would tell you is,
if it's not greater than 8, it's not great. A 7.25 probably
lets me know that I'm a littleearly in
the game here, or it could be a solid no. Maybe that's all
I needed. I just needed thatlittle bit of analysis by these
4 categories in a 7.25. Man, I'mtelling you, that's not where I
(18:30):
wanna be. It's close, but nocigar.
Right? Now there's other timesthere's other times that I might
have given an 8, 8, 9, and 9.God's an 8. I'm an 8. Others are
a 9.
The opportunity is a 9, and I
get an 8.5. I'm telling you, it's go time. It's go time.
If it's greater than 8, it'sgreat.
(18:50):
And that probably means there's a pretty good potential
for this decision to be made ina good way. Now there's always
what I believe, without faith,it's impossible to believe god.
And there's always that elementof faith. And rarely have I seen
anybody get a 9.95 or anybodyget a 10. But when you start
moving into the eights andabove, you know you're honing in
on a decision that pretty muchis probably moving in the right
(19:13):
direction.
And I think this is kind of howDavid analyzed his life. Now I'm
gonna I'm gonna dig into that alittle bit more in just a
minute. But are you with me? Letme summarize. Bottom line is
we're talking about a decisiontree.
We have to define the question,what is the decision we're
trying to make? Then we filterit through 4 categories, 2g's
and 2os, god, gut, others, andopportunity. Then we rate what
(19:38):
do we think God thinks about itand we had 3 w's, remember that?
We had 3 w's. What does my gutsay about it?
What do others say about it? Andwhat is the opportunity? I add
all those up, I divide those by4 and that gives me my
confidence rating. And in thiscase that I gave you, a 6, 7, or
6, 8, 7 and 8 was 29 divided by4 was 7.25. And I'm gonna tell
(20:01):
you, I probably wouldn't bemoving ahead with that business
at this time.
So sometimes, which is often thecase, we feel confident that we
are making the right decision,but the timing isn't just right.
It maybe has something to dowith us, it may have something
to do with other circumstances,but here's what I
can tell you. Here's what I can tell you. Would you agree?
(20:26):
Timing is everything.
Timing is everything. And that's where the life of David
comes into play. That's where Ican tie in David into this
decision tree.
What do we
know about David? Let's do a little review here about this
this leader, this leader thatled a nation, was considered one
of the most amazing leaders toever live. What do we know about
(20:46):
David? Well, here's one thingyou probably know pretty quick.
He was a shepherd boy.
He was a shepherd boy and he wasthe runt of the family. He was
the runt of the family. And oneday, this man comes into their
village and he decides that hethinks that the next king of
Israel is in this village andDavid has all these brothers and
(21:07):
David's out in the fieldwatching the sheep and this man,
Samuel, comes in and he'stalking to Jesse and he's that's
David's dad, and he says, hey,
line them up.
I wanna see what they look like. And he lines them up and
he says, and I'm not tooimpressed. Do you got anything
better? He says, well, we gotthe rut in the family. His
(21:30):
name's David.
He's out in the in the pasture.So Samuel Waltz is out there and
it becomes clear to him thatDavid is the anointed. David is
the next king to lead thisnation into the next, you know,
the next generation. So he kindof rubs David on the head and
says, hey kids, you're going tobe king someday. David doesn't
think anything about it and hesits on this rock and he
continues to use this slingshotto knock acorns off of other
(21:53):
stones and kind of sets out justkind of watching the sunset and
rise and making sure the wolvesdon't come
and eat all the family livestock. And years goes by.
And what do we know? David's
setting it home, and his brothers are off at war now. And
dad's getting worried about him,and he says, you know what,
David? I want you to take thisbag of biscuits, to the boys on
(22:15):
the field and let me know howthey're doing. David shows up
and there's this giant in hislife, this standing before all
of his countrymen. Now can you relate? Do you have giants
in your life?
Are there giants that stand before you? And sometimes I
think that we're called out tobe giant slayers. And I think in
this particular time in space,David had a decision to make. He
(22:37):
looked out there and he saw thisgiant of a man, you know the
story, David and Goliath. Andhe's like, what is going on with
all
of you guys? Why hasn't somebody taken this Philistine
out? And what happened? Davidsays, I got this, guys. And they
all laugh and they tell him
to go home, but the king gets interested.
And what does David do? He's offered all of
(22:59):
the king's armor. It's big. It's bulky. And David's like,
nah. Don't need that.
I got my slingshot and a fewrocks. I'm gonna go down down
and knock this guy out, and I'llbe home for dinner by the here
in just a little bit. And that'sexactly what he does. And then
David's life, you know, he hecomes into the king's court.
He's a he's a favor he'sfavored.
He's not only good at with aslingshot, he's pretty good on
(23:20):
the electric harp. That's ajoke. He's not electric harp,
but he was good on the harp. Andhe's playing the harp, and the
king loves him, he finds favor.One thing leads to another, he
becomes a warrior, he doesreally good and the king doesn't
necessarily like the press thatDavid gets as a warrior.
And he ends up being pursued,and King Saul attempts to try to
(23:42):
kill him. And
David's on the run. And time and
time again, he has opportunities to take Saul out,
and there's decisions that hehas to make. But he doesn't want
to he doesn't want to act toosoon. He doesn't wanna get out
ahead of what the g in thedecision tree would say because
David knew that Saul was theanointed and it wasn't his time
(24:05):
to be king. But here he waswaiting all this time. What was
it about this man that came intohis life and said he was gonna
be king and now it's time goeson and on and on.
He knows what his calling is. Hefeels like he has his purpose in
life, but but it's not beingfulfilled. And next thing we
know, king Saul is out of thepicture, David becomes king and
(24:27):
we begin to see a pattern inDavid's life as a leader that is
precedent. David, if he wasknown as the beloved, there's
another phrase that he's knownfor and that he was known as a
man after God's own heart. Whatthis tells me is that I can sum
up David's approach by making,this statement.
He made decisions
(24:49):
that I can describe with one word, ask.
David was a leader that was known to ask. He would ask god.
He would ask his friends. Hewould ask himself. He would ask
about the opportunity.
David began to ask.
So what would he do?
He would say, what would the lord have us do? One of my
(25:09):
most favorite stories that arein these ancient texts that I'm
referring to is a story in thein the old testament where David
is now king and it's his firstbattle where he is called to a
battle down in a certain valleyand he has a a known enemy, and
they need to be taken out. AndDavid's about to rush out with
(25:30):
all of his men, and I I'm addingto the story here. I'm I kinda
think it might have been how itwas, so don't quote me per se on
it or I I don't I don't thinkhe's exactly right. But the
bottom line is David is about togo out and take on the enemy.
I mean, he's he's he's known forkicking tail, man. He's kicking
butt. He's known for for takingout people, and It's not like he
doesn't know what he's doing.But what does David do with all
(25:52):
of his mighty men? Can you justsee these guys all decked out
like gladiators ready to
go down and kick some tail? What does David do? And it's
similar to
what we learned about when we deal with worry. He said,
hey, guys, let's be still.
What would the lord have us do?
You see, he was practicing the the one of the g's out of
the decision tree. What wouldthe lord have us do? And so I
(26:17):
believe that there's thispattern that we can look into
David's life and we can see thathe was known for asking. He was
pausing, and he would put thedecision tree in front of
himself, and he would givehimself time to work it through.
He wasn't he wouldn't just gooff half cocked.
He wouldn't just do it on awhim. He would take the time to
be still and contemplate, but hewouldn't sit around and get
caught up in the paralysis ofanalysis. So when I think of his
(26:40):
life, I also think of 6 w's. NowI'm I'm pulling out now at about
20, 30000 feet, and I thinkabout his life in as as as a
whole and in general. And so Ithink that David knew his
calling, but I think he oftenfound himself with what I call
the 6 w's.
And we run this down across thebottom of the decision tree and
(27:04):
we call it the David principle.And these 6 w's is where I think
David found himself, and quitefrankly, I think it's where I
find myself a lot of times whenI'm trying to make a decision.
And even a lot of times, after Ifeel like I have the right
decision, it seems like thetiming isn't just right. And I
know that David practiced these6 these 6 w's and here's what
(27:25):
they are. I think David foundhimself often waiting and
watching,
waiting and watching. He knew what he was supposed to do,
but he was waiting for theproper time. He was watching for
the time to act. He knew justwhen to throw the rock from the
(27:45):
sling. He knew just when
to run down to the battlefield. And what's
interesting about that storyabout his first battle, the
first battle that he had when hesaid, what would the Lord have
us do? What's interesting aboutthat story is it wasn't too much
longer that the same enemy onthe same battlefield came back
into play. And David could havethought that what he did before
is what he needed to do now, butwhat did David do? That's the
(28:07):
beautiful thing about the lifeof David, and that's why I love
the decision tree.
David went before the lord andsaid, lord, what would you have
us do? He was waiting andwatching. And then here's the
here's the thing. He waswilling. He was waiting,
watching and willing.
And he was willing to do thenext three w's. He was willing
to do whatever,
(28:28):
whenever, wherever.
And that's what it comes down to. If we're gonna make
good decisions, we we may findourselves waiting. We may find
ourselves watching. I believeDavid was a man that utilized
something like the decisiontree. I believe David was a man
(28:50):
that utilized something like thedecision tree.
No. I don't think it was thedecision tree, but it was
something like that. How aboutyou? How about you? What
decision are you trying to make?
Where do you find yourself? Isthere a decision you are trying
to make? Do you feel confident you have the right
answer?
You have all the information? Do you find
(29:10):
yourself waiting and watchingand willing to do whatever,
whenever, wherever?
Have you remained willing to do whatever, whenever,
wherever? You see, the decisiontree is a great way to gain a
perspective on the decisions wemake in life. Hey.
If you would like a copy of the decision tree, by all means,
(29:33):
look at the show notes, and wehave a link there, or reach out
to us on the website, raysanders dotcom. Hey. Thanks for
stopping by. It means a lot. Ireally mean that.
I'd love to hear from you. If ifyou were encouraged by what we
said here, you were inspired, byall means, hit the like button,
subscribe, send out theinformation. Let's share the
(29:54):
love. Better yet, why not sendthe podcast to a friend? Reach
out to us at ray sanders.com.
We'd love to hear from you.Know, that pretty much does it
for the show. Thanks for joiningme again here on the Ray Sanders
Leadership Podcast. We're inyour corner for life and work.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.